Every urbanites worst nightmare came true for one New Yorker this week: Jennifer Rosoff, leaning against the railing on the balcony of her Upper East Side apartment, suddenly fell 17 stories to her death after the railing gave way. This is obviously horrifying and tragic. Rosoff was a media executive with stints at The New Yorker and Cosmopolitan on her resume. Its outrageous that the owners of her building were so remiss in their balcony inspection duties. But if you skimmed the beginning of the Associated Presss account of Rosoffs accidental death, you wouldnt get much information about Rosoffs promising career or about the structural inadequacies of her balcony. Here are the first two paragraphs of the APs article about Rosoff:

"A 35-year-old media executive on a first date plunged to her death Thursday after the railing on her 17th-floor New York City balcony gave way, police said."

"Jennifer Rosoff went outside for a cigarette around 12:50 a.m. when she either sat on the railing or leaned on it. Her date told her that she probably shouldn't do it, and then moments later, she apparently fell backward and landed on construction scaffolding at the first floor, authorities said. Police spoke to the man and no foul play was suspected."

Lets break this down. According to the AP, the crucial facts you need to know about Rosoff right off the bat are that:

1. She was 35 and single.

2. She was a smoker.

3. She invited a man back to her apartment late at night on a first date.

4. The man warned her not to lean against the balcony, but she did it anyway.

Well then we should ban farting too. And body odor. And too much cologne/perfume. Petition your government. I'm sure you'll find enough fellow nanny-staters to stand with your cause and pass even more laws, 'cause we don't have enough of those.

Let’s see, New York City (NYC), a bustling metropolis with just a few lawyers in the local area. The usual suspects; architect, materials provider, contractor, building inspector, union and Mafia ... eney, meeney, miny, moe ... choose one or all!

The idea of being unable to lean against a railing is ridiculous and I have this suspicion that NYC has more regulations about this than almost any other place on earth. Add some more regs?

15
posted on 08/02/2013 4:01:02 PM PDT
by SES1066
(Government governs best when it governs least!)

I read from another source - she used it to put her leg on as she stretched.

IIRC, inspection is due every 5 years for the balconies and was due this past February.

She didn’t lean or sit on it. Seems they are trying to make her sound clueless to suggest she would sit on it 17 floors high. They are merely blowing ‘smoke’ up readers’ butt. And that’s the smoke people should be allergic to!

It usually implies some form of willful act. In as much as the writers at AP cannot claim to know any motive the victim had for falling, the only PROPER word in the sentence I quoted, in place of “plunged” would have been “fell”.

But, their use of “plunged” goes together with their otherwise perjorative reporting of the tragedy, so maybe their use of “plunged” in its perjorative sense was intentional as well.

Railings don’t usually just give out with a thin woman like that leaning up against it. My guess is that her and her date were engaged in some sweet balcony sex when the railing gave out when his railing got too hard.

"No ones farting, bo, perfume lingers for hours or days, nor can you smell it from across the room. Those other smells dont permeate someone elses clothing either. Theres no comparison."

Oh...first it was just obnoxious and people don't like it. Now there's some persistency threshold. You nanny-staters will always find some justification for your desire to control people's behavior. Look...if a property owner, be it a residence, or public conveyance like a restaurant wants to restrict or prohibit smoking on their property I'm fine with that. When the government directs that a property owner restrict that, that's tyranny, which permeates more than clothes, and lingers far longer than tobacco smoke. But as long as you enjoy the stench, I guess you're all for it.

The reporting on this was far more accurate than we typically get from the MSM. We have had sixteen years with no statistically significant global warming and ten years of actual cooling, yet it is reported that global warming is happening worse than even the scariest predictions.

Polar bears are breeding and multiplying so successfully that they are now threatening seal populations and making repeated raids on Arctic villages. Yet it is reported that they are still near extinction.

The NSA under the Obama administration have been keeping detailed records on virtually everyone violating our 4th amendment rights yet it is reported that Edward Snowden is the traitor.

Obama provided us with an easily spotted fake birth certificate yet those of us who are concerned about this are the ones reported to be kooks.

Claims of sexism and racism are often more of a reflection of the person making the claim. There is absolutely nothing in the APs reporting that implies that she was a slut and that she had it coming. Those are all the conclusions of L.V. Anderson, the one crying racism and sexism.

I am not prepared to make any judgments about the woman's character just because she went out drinking, invited a black man she just met home to have sex with her and then fell off her 17th floor balcony after repeated warnings from her new friend.

I am sure that it was the apartment management's fault and the drinking alcohol and smoking who knows what had no effect on her judgment or balance and had nothing to do with her demise. Many drunk women who have just had sex with a stranger sit on weathered and partially rotted wooden railings 17 floors up while they smoke. If one checks I am sure that the same type of tragedy has played out many times even among Amish women.

Smart to be careful. Many a visitor death from ‘getting just the right camera angle’. Seven Falls in Colorado Springs comes to mind, as a pretty little thing died there not too many years ago doing just that.

Or the woman who stopped on an over-the-road iceflow, SUV slid sideways, then down 400 feet.

41
posted on 08/02/2013 4:33:35 PM PDT
by Balding_Eagle
(When America falls, darkness will cover the face of the earth for a thousand years.)

All the non-smokers I know were once smokers and all of them admit they enjoy the 2nd hand smoke.

Now, people have been telling me I would die young and I am past 70 1/2. People have been telling me I would end up with crepe paper skin and now they are amazed to learn my age because I am told I don’t look it. I am perfectly willing to continue paying my own health care costs, since I have paid both sides of Medicare/SS forever, still pay because I am still vital enough to work and since I have only seen an MD for an injury in the past couple of years, take no medications and prior to the ER visit had seen a physician 3x in ten years to have a wart removed, I am obviously not a drain on our nation’s precious health resources. I am in fact, a net contributor in both taxes and health insurance premiums.

I am not alone nor am I some rare exception. I have watched non-smokers die of lung cancer and other terrible cancers.

So, SVTCobra03, I get that you detest all tobacco use. That is as much your right as it is my right and that of others to use tobacco. Figment spoke truth: non-smokers may leave the room if there are smokers present who are indulging.

Yes...last time I went up with my mom and kids Fall 2011. Very pretty and unseasonably warm even on top. Now that would have freaked me out as a kid and we did go up there when I was a child. I used to get in the back of my parent's Red Hornet and hide my head and cry. So I'm getting better. Mostly overlooks freak me out. I inch my way up to fence and I do quick looks over and take pics, but it's very serious business. :)

Seems they are trying to make her sound clueless to suggest she would sit on it 17 floors high.

Not implausible. I nearly knocked a co-ed out of a 7th-story dorm window in my senior year of college. She was sitting inside the window, her but and legs lined up along the edge. If I had actually made body contact, I might have ended up in jail for manslaughter.

Several people in a hiking group at Yosemite that included three who were swept away and presumed dead had climbed over a barricade and were in the water about 25 feet from the edge of a waterfall, standing, playing and taking photographs, witnesses told Yosemite rangers.

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